Books

The Invitation: The Secret to Creating Your Best Life

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The Life You Want, Wants You!

The Invitation: The Secret to Creating Your Best Life
Karyn Pettigrew
Manufacturer: Highest Good Publications
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 1598250094

Book Description

The Invitation offers a way to reconnect with spirit. It is a valuable contribution to the work of so many others who are striving to help us improve our relationship with self and, therefore, with everyone else. It is an instruction book for the human spirit on how to consciously allow this most powerful force to create the life you want through ALIGNment (ATTRACT THE LIFE YOU WANT BY INVITING GRACE NOW). Make The Invitation part of your daily ritual and you're guaranteed to live an amazing life!

Customer Reviews:

The Life You Want, Wants You!.......2007-01-31

It is author and speaker Marianne Williamson who wrote:

"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others."

The Invitation: The Secret to Creating Your Best Life will inspire and empower you to create the life you've always longed for. Pettigrew writes with clarity, conviction and wisdom, and this powerful pocket-sized book reads like a loving but firm friend who delights in your greatness. Your all that is-ness. So many books take a while to get through before one can get the point. I love that The Invitation is pocket sized. I carry it with me daily as a reminder, that yes, I have the power to create my best life. It's not for celebrities or people out there. The Invitation is a guiding thought and principle. You can read The Invitation in one sitting yet return to it again and again for greater insight and life application.

The life you want, wants you. Don't miss "the invitation" to create your best life now! Grab a copy for a friend or co-worker. They will thank you!

Reviewed by Marina Woods for GoodGirlBookClubOnline, the #1 Destination for Today's Aspiring Woman

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Stunning Visuals!
Elegant and Classic
Excellent book of poems!
Finally, a comprehensive collection of all the greats!

The 100 Best Love Poems of All Time
Leslie Pockell
Manufacturer: Grand Central Publishing
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Love Poems | Poetry | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

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ASIN: 0446690228

Book Description

Here, in one compact volume, is a greatest hits collection of the 100 bets love poems ever written by 100 of the world's greatest poets. This essential anthology is ideal for the romantic-and will inspire any cynic. The poets included range throughout the history of world literature: from the Classics (Sappho, Catullus) and Renaissance (Shakespeare, Donne, Dante) to the Romantics (Shelly, Keats, Wordsworth) and 20th century giants (Frost, Lorca, Graves), right down to the present day (Viorst, Patchen, Neruda). Each poem features a brief introduction, which details the poet's life history as well as the poem's significance.

Customer Reviews:

Stunning Visuals!.......2006-05-04

This book paints a picture of love with the most beautiful word pictures, it decorates the soul with heartfelt visuals of passion.

Elegant and Classic.......2006-03-30

How can I keep my soul in me, so that it doesn't touch your soul?
How can I raise it high enough, past you, to other things?
I would like to shelter it, among remote lost objects,
in some dark and silent place that doesn't resonate
when our depths resound. ~Rainer Maria Rilke

Leslie Pockell has created a collection of 100 Love Poems in order to explore the many facets of love's expression. The poems range from passionate longings to realistic portrayals (Judith Viorst's True Love). There are images of love's transcendence and safety. Everything from ecstasy to grief is included. Classics like To Helen by Edgar Allan Poe are very familiar.

The River Merchant's Wife by Li Po brings elegant beauty and Strawberries by Edwin Morgan dips into memories of storms while eating strawberries in sugar, one of my all-time favorite poems because of the ending. Katherine Mansfield's poem about tea is warm and satisfying. The flow and rhythm in many of the poems is especially comforting.

The wide range of emotions within the poems also allows for a few moments of sarcasm (Love 20 Cents the First Quarter Mile by Kenneth Fearing) and even humor that is adorably funny. Your Catfish Friend by Richard Brautigan is witty and cute and looks at love from an especially creative perspective. This allows for poems with personality and lightens the heavier content and melancholy love often reveals.

Complete poems and extracts mingle effortlessly through the pages. Each poem is accompanied by an insightful explanation that also sheds light on historical facts and the life of the poet. In Love Song by Rainer Maria Rilke we learn of his lifelong melancholy and Leslie Pockell explains how he is conscious of the distance between lovers playing an "essential part in sustaining the mystery of love and life." Her ideas flow with the poems in a beautiful celebration of poetry. She gives only enough information to introduce the poem and does not provide extended commentary.

Poets featured in this collection include: Dante Alighieri, William Shakespeare, Howard Moss, Christopher Marlowe, John Milton, Edgar Allan Poe, Robert Burns, Robert Graves, Rumi, Sir John Suckling, E.E. Cummings, Frances Cornford, Sir Philip Sidney, Guillaume Apollinaire, Juan Ramon Jimenez, Walt Witman, Pablo Neruda, William Blake, Robert Frost, Catullus, Octavio Paz, Tzumi Shikibu, Sylvia Plath, Li Po, D.H. Lawrence, John Keats, Ted Hughes, Margaret Atwood and many more...

There are 100 poets featured in this book. Whether you are a hopeless romantic or enjoy thinking about the many aspects of love, this book has much to offer. I can almost guarantee you will find 5 poems to adore, 10 you want to read again and again and 20 new poets you are happy to have found.

~The Rebecca Review

Excellent book of poems!.......2004-02-19

The title says it all. Great Poets with great love poems equates to a pleasurable read. If you like romance and love, then this book Love poems are for you.

Finally, a comprehensive collection of all the greats!.......2003-10-30

At first I thought, oh here is another thrown together "best of" collection....*yawn*. But after reading this collection, I was so glad I picked it up! Finally, an anthology that includes all the classics, plus some pleasant surprises that would normally be overlooked. Hopefully, more "best of" collections will come from the team that put this one together!!

The Best American Poetry 2006 (Best American Poetry)

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A wonderful sampling of contemporary poetry
Good to keep up with current poetry
Ok
Poems Selected for their Modern Beauty
More Keillor than Kleinzahler. What, is that a problem?

The Best American Poetry 2006 (Best American Poetry)
Billy Collins
Manufacturer: Scribner
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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The Best American Poetry 2005 (Best American Poetry)
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Real Sofistikashun: Essays on Poetry and Craft

ASIN: 0743257596

Book Description

Billy Collins, one of our most beloved poets, has chosen poems of wit, humor, imagination, and surprise, in a range of styles and forms, for The Best American Poetry 2006. The result is a celebration of the pleasures of poetry.

In his charming and candid introduction Collins explains how he chose seventy-five poems from among the thousands he considered. With insightful comments from the poets illuminating their work, and series editor David Lehman's thought-provoking foreword, The Best American Poetry 2006 is a brilliant addition to a series that links the most noteworthy verse and prose poems of our time to a readership as discerning as it is devoted to the art of poetry.

Customer Reviews:

A wonderful sampling of contemporary poetry.......2007-05-13

Since a great many contemporary poems leave me confused or disappointed, I was delighted to connect positively with so many of the seventy-five poems selected by guest editor, Billy Collins. The editor's Introduction brought insights that contributed to my enjoyment, as well as providing guidance to would-be poets. Of course, the guest editor makes a huge contribution to the success of this annual series, and Billy Collins has ferreted out some treasures for 2006.

Good to keep up with current poetry .......2007-03-09

It is good for those who are not inclined to keep up with currently published poets to see the choices of a poet laureate.

Ok.......2006-12-14

The only favorite poem of mine is by Kay Ryan. The rest of the stuff is mediocre..

Poems Selected for their Modern Beauty.......2006-11-20

In my mind, poetry books should be a little like a movie, comfortable like your favorite chair and mostly an unforgettable experience. I will agree that most poems are only appealing if they somehow find their way into your psyche and heart in a way that is comforting, shocking, beautiful or even soul revealing.

Each poet is a world unto themselves and each poem is a door into a magical world where you either love or dislike the pathway you have chosen. The beauty of poetry is in how we vary in how we relate to any particular poem.

In "The Best American Poetry 2006," I found so many doorways to new thoughts it was as if this book contained 20 worlds from which to view life and its many moments invisibly charged with crystalline emotions, edgy contemplations, tantalizing twists and taunting mysteries.

I was relieved to read that even Billy Collins was unfamiliar with so many of these modern poets, although I was delighted to have found so many new poets whose work I enjoyed. Being a fan of Billy Collins' poetry seems to have enhanced my reading experience. His humor seems to jump out from various poems in a way that you might find his poems funny.

The surprising elements seem to mirror some of his own poetic genius and his love for scene painting with delicious sentences makes many of these poems comforting escapes into a certain normality infused with the inevitability of surprise and a subtle infusion of emotional complexity. Just as in life, some of the poems have a mind of their own and take off in playful directions, almost guiding the poet's mind in a temptation of language lust.

If you are looking for poems with highly complex structures and obscure words you need to look up in a dictionary, this does not produce such literary excitement, but what it does produce is a variety of emotional responses. These range from outright elation and laughing to deeply profound moods born of a life lived with longing and moments of reflection and regret.

From the fascinating foreword by David Lehman to the contributor's notes and comments, this book is filled with poems, stories of modern poets and journeys through worlds we know and love. We are at times riding on a boat writing a poem that sounds more like a letter (The Ferry), entering a bibliomaniac's world where a book is more appealing than the sight of a woman (Refusal to Notice Beautiful Women) and returning to past moments of great romantic significance as in the poem by Beth Ann Fennelly.

In Sarah Gorham's poem she speaks of two different ideas, but they merge and a beautiful image of souls falling like stars descends on your imagination. A poem about a Mermaid brings a sweet playfulness to the book and one poem takes you on a jaunty ride into rhythmic pleasure. There are a few poems with shocking conclusions that are quite funny and others that left me wondering how the poet was able to survive emotionally all these years to write about such disaster of the heart. My heart was captured by the poems of Kim Addonizio, Debora Greger, Mary Oliver, Mary Jo Salter, Terence Winch, Alison Townsend (she had me in tears), Reb Livingston (reminded me of childhood) and so many more. I think Dean Young has an interesting take on an idea from Alice in Wonderland.

I love the rebellious spirit in "Briefcase of Sorrow" where Richard Newman teasingly takes on a quote by Frances Mayes and literally paints an image based off a few words that seem to imply failure...and the poem races past the finish line and we feel like cheering, even silently. I will admit to the difficulty of even extracting a few lines to explain the beauty of the poems, because honestly the sentences are tightly woven together with meanings the reader could miss without the entire picture being painted in a set sequence of events that draws you in and presents clarity that often leads to a mysterious conclusions with a variety of interpretations. Instead of a moment here and a line there, you receive a much fuller experience and it is also emotionally satisfying.

Throughout The Best American Poetry 2006 you will find deliciously modern poems with pop culture references and plenty of moments you can relate to on a daily basis. This book is not filled with poems gathered from molding collections dusty with neglect found in some forgotten library. This is a collection of living breathing poems that sing the songs of seventy-five contemporary poets who reveal to us the life we are currently living and in that is the beauty of this reading experience.

If you are looking for modern romantic poetry, I can highly recommend "Eyes of the Poet" or "Poetry Collection de Jolie-Laide." For a truly magical experience you may also love " Something Familiar" by Kat Ricker. To truly say you have lived, you may also want to listen to Billy Collins read his poems. If you love this book, you will adore his poems. As a poet myself and a reader of many poetry books over the past few years, I can recommend this book as a welcome addition to anyone interested in collecting modern poems.

~The Rebecca Review

More Keillor than Kleinzahler. What, is that a problem?.......2006-10-20

I like this book, an annual publication with this year's selection and introduction by Billy Collins. I doubt that I would select these particular 75 as the "best" of the year if I were the emperor, but these poems are very readable, quite varied, and their subjects are often of considerable human interest, including several that are quite humorous. The sources include such varied publications as The New Yorker, Five Points and New American Writing. You don't need an MFA, an encyclopedia of mythology or a French dictionary to read it. Most lines make sense! Every poem has an expanded note at the back of the book that tells a little about the author and (in most cases) a little about the author's view of the poem. Some people would hate this feature, but I liked it.

My criticism? Almost the same as my praise. The poems are a little too vanilla, a little too PBS/NPR. The selection seems to be aimed at an older, middle-class audience that fancies itself to still have some intellectual sea legs, but doesn't want to get off the cruise ship and mix with the locals (there - I said it). There's not much for the adventurous or those who are looking for challenges, experimentation, unusual verbal/mental stimulation, or points of view beyond 1 standard deviation. Those who are familiar with pop literary criticism will fit this book somewhere into the kleinzahler-keillor spectrum and probably takes sides accordingly. I lean toward the kleinzahler in my preferences, but would definitely put this book in the keillor camp. The poet demographics are largely older white men, though there is a sprinkling of females (several, actually), youth, other nationalities, and people of color. Geezers are capable of some good poetry, and this book gives some examples.

There were several poems that I enjoyed a lot. These include "Race" by Bao Phi, "Religion" by Robert Wrigley, "Briefcase of Sorrow" by Richard Newman, and "The Sharper the Berry" by Mark Pawlak.

Although not my favorite, the most memorable poem for me is "Towards some bright moment" by Stephen Dobyns. The poet describes a scene he witnessed in New York City where a blind woman is kicking and cursing her dog. I believe I witnessed the same scene. At the time and location that he describes in the poem, I also witnessed a blind woman hitting and cursing her dog. And like the poet, I have also thought about that event a lot since then. My conclusions were a little more trivial than his - "Only in New York," I thought. "Why didn't I call PETA," says he, to put both reactions in a very small nutshell. This scene seems like something out an R. Crumb comic, where one person's shock is another person's poem - and then that person's poem can inspire the first person. To activate this scenario, I join the club and write this almost-haiku:

blind woman
kicking her dog
Yeow! a poem's birth hurts.

A little bit of compulsive sociology: as noted above, most of the poets in this collection are relatively old. I made of list of birth years (extracted from those wonderful end notes), and the average age is 52. I believe there were 4 in their 20s, but 18 in their 60s, 3 in their 70s and one octogenarian. Like I said, some of these geezers can write.

The Best American Poetry 2005 (Best American Poetry)

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Vivid Portraits of Mature Recollections
Best of the Best
the best american poetry 2005

The Best American Poetry 2005 (Best American Poetry)

Manufacturer: Scribner
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0743257588

Book Description

This eagerly awaited volume in the celebrated Best American Poetry series reflects the latest developments and represents the state of the art today. Paul Muldoon, the distinguished poet and international literary eminence, has selected -- from a pool of several thousand published candidates -- the top seventy-five poems of the year.

With insightful comments from the poets illuminating their work, and series editor David Lehman's perspicacious foreword, The Best American Poetry 2005 is indispensable for every poetry enthusiast.

Customer Reviews:

Vivid Portraits of Mature Recollections.......2006-12-14

"Your burglaries leave no thumbprint
Mine, too, are silent
I do my best imagining at night,
And you do yours with the help of shadows.

Like actors rehearsing a play,
The dark ones withdrew
Into remote corners of the room
The rest of us sat in expectation
Of your burning oratory."

~ from Sunlight by Charles Simic

The maturity of the poems in The Best American Poetry 2005 is instantly apparent the moment you read "In View of the Fact" by A.R. Ammons. This is a deeply thoughtful collection of poems best addressed when you are in a contemplative mood. Within the pages there are many surprises, lovely conclusions and especially creative thought patterns. Sexuality and death seem to be themes throughout, but there is also humor and cleverly designed rhymes the wittiest poets must long to master.

"Ants" by Vicki Hudspith is especially comical while Mary Karr's poem about her son is especially heart-warming and leans more towards a serious realization of life's complexity within expectation. Richard Garcia's "Adam and Eve's Dog" lightens a topic most would find quite serious and Edward Field's poem of praise has a beautiful freeing conclusion with metaphorical appeal.

"If I were Japanese I'd write about magnolias
in March, how tonal, each bud long as a pencil,
sheathed in celadon suede, jutting from a cluster
of glossy leaves. I'd end the poem before anything
bloomed, end with rain swelling the buds
and the sheaths bursting, then falling to the grass
like a fairy's castoff slippers, like candy wrappers,
like spent firecrackers."
~ Beth Ann Fennelly, pg. 46

What I am most impressed by in this collection of poems, is the truthfulness and the straightforward invitation into this sincerity. There is a cleverness in the crafting of each idea (I Want to be Your Shoebox) and at times profound lessons can appear through the viewpoint of a poet who sees the world a little more intensely (The Poets March on Washington). Jane Hirshfield's "Burlap Sack" paints an image of bondage and freedom, while Linda Pastan reveals a different type of cultural freedom.

Paul Muldoon's selections also provide a consistent mood and his love for rhyme and complex sentence structures invites you into a world of poems that reveal intricate details of your own life. At times his selections are realistic and edgy with mature considerations and at other times he has selected profound moments to inspire a more heartfelt appreciation for beauty. Both ideas seem to weave together to form a painting of how life is really lived in a realistic setting, as opposed to a more romantic rendering of ideas within a dreamscape of fantasy poems. Now and then, a line in a poem is so highly significant you can read the entire poem and then suddenly awaken upon a stunning moment.

"Wanting the tight buds of my loneliness
to swell and split, not die in wanting.
It was why I rushed through everything,
why I tore away at the perpetual gauze
between me and the stinging world"
~ pg. 133, Chase Twichell

I can also highly recommend the 2006 edition of The Best American Poetry, which is enhanced with pop culture references and a distinctly contemporary mood. As with all the books edited by David Lehman, the "Foreword" is well worth reading. David Lehman's experience in the world of poetry reveals ideas that will be of great interest to anyone interested in poetry culture.

~The Rebecca Review

Best of the Best.......2005-12-07

BAP2005 surely is a high point for the quality of the volume's poetry and the number of internet offerings included.

the best american poetry 2005.......2005-10-07

first class condition and prompt delivery Thank you

100 Best-Loved Poems (Dover Thrift Editions)

Average customer rating:

Poetic Journey through Time
Not Impressed!
Great poems
Despite the hype - title Great poetry anthology
disappointing

100 Best-Loved Poems (Dover Thrift Editions)

Manufacturer: Dover Publications
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Great Love Poems (Dover Thrift Editions)
The Road Not Taken and Other Poems (Dover Thrift Editions)
The 100 Best Love Poems of All Time
The 100 Best Poems of All Time

ASIN: 0486285537

Book Description

Popular, well-known poetry: "The Passionate Shepherd to His Love," "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?" "Death, be not proud," "The Raven," "The Road Not Taken," plus works by Blake, Wordsworth, Byron, Shelley, Keats, many others.

Customer Reviews:

Poetic Journey through Time.......2006-09-02

"The fog comes
on little cat feet.

It sits looking
over the harbor and city
on silent haunches
and then move on."
~Fog, Carl Sandburg

100 Best-Loved Poems presents poems from the Middle Ages to the 20th Century. The poets are all familiar, but the poems are more varied and quite a few are poems I'd never read before. In a compilation like this, you'd imagine to find quite a few familiar favorites from high school or college and those did appear throughout.

There is comfort in reading poems we tried to understand in school, but didn't have the emotional maturity to fully digest. Now upon reflection, how could we have truly understood "To His Coy Mistress" at 16, a poem born of mature desire. Now nearing forty, I feel I can linger in these poems enjoying every nuance.

This classic collection includes brief introductions to each poet and includes some information on poetic forms. In the section of Ballads, you can hear the singsong rhymes as you read so the first poem was a good choice.

The poets include: Lord Randal, Sir Patrick Spens, Sir Thomas Wyatt, Christopher Marlowe, William Shakespeare, Thomas Nashe, John Donne, Ben Jonson, Robert Herrick, George Herbert, Edmund Waller, John Milton, Richard Lovelace, Andrew Marvell, Henry Vaughan, Thomas Gray, William Blake, Robert Burns, William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Leigh Hunt, Lord Byron, Percy Bysshe Shelley, William Cullen Bryant, John Keats Ralph Waldo Emerson, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, John Greenleaf Whittier, Edgar Allan Poe, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Robert Browning, Walt Whitman, Matthew Arnold, George Meredith, Emily Dickinson, Christina Rossetti, Lewis Carroll, Thomas Hardy, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Robert Louis Stevenson, A.E. Housman, Rudyard Kipling, William Butler Yeats, Edwin Arlington Robinson, Robert Frost, Carl Sandburg, Wallace Stevens, William Carlos Williams, Ezra Pound, Marianne Moore, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Wilfred Owen, E.E. Cummings, W.H. Auden and Dylan Thomas.

While the poems are not overly culturally diverse and seem to focus on English and American poets, there is a wonderful early translation for "The River-Merchant's Wife: A letter." It was fun to find "The Tyger" by William Blake and Lewis Carroll's "Jabberwocky" makes a little more sense to me now. "Ode on a Grecian Urn" makes more sense when you can see a picture. Percy Bysshe Shelley's "Ozymandias" is a reminder of time's destructive powers and William Wordsworth's "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud" speaks of the human condition and the way we connect with nature. William Butler Yeats has a different take on age in "When You Are Old." He speaks more of appreciation than destruction.

"For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils."
~I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud, William Wordsworth

The selections by Emily Dickinson are playful and they made me want to read more of her poems. There are quite a few life lesson poems that are profound in content, like "If-" by Rudyard Kipling, where he speaks of what it takes to me a man. Robert Frost also presents intriguing notions and life choices in his "The Road Not Taken."

This collection offers recollections of poetry you may remember and introduces quite a few poems that are less familiar. John Donne's Holy Sonnet XIV was new to me, although I had read Holy Sonnet X..."Death be not proud..."As far as romance goes, Ben Johnson's "To Celia" stands out as does Robert Burns' "A Red, Red Rose."

100 Best-Loved Poems is a lovely classic collection and it is nice to have all these poems in one book for future contemplation. I will have to agree with everyone else who made comment as to the lack of cultural variety. For this, you may want to seek out poetry collections by Sam Hamill. For me, this was an inexpensive way to expand my poetry knowledge and to remember some of the poems I learned in high school and college.

"The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep."
~Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening, Robert Frost

~The Rebecca Review

Not Impressed!.......2006-05-03

I don't think I would consider these the best loved poems. Yes, they are by classic authors. but in all honesty I found this to be just an average read of poems I could of found off the net.

My suggestion is, if your looking for brilliant poetry to check out Theological Immortal Romance by author Kevin Brian Wright here on amazon.

Great poems.......2006-02-12

very nice book I would recomend. I'm a big poetry lover and this book gives me a lot of what I yearn for.

Despite the hype - title Great poetry anthology .......2005-05-03

This book is titled ' the one- hundred best loved poems' .By whom? All the poems are by writers in English? Are there any other languages and people in the world?
Secondly. Where is the evidence that these poems are the most loved even by English language readers? Many are certainly very popular, frequently anthologized. My guess is that today a fair share of the poems in this anthology are not widely read.
Now that I have been a grump, let me say that the anthology is rich with great, and certainly some of the most loved poems in the English language. In fact some of these poems have been published so many times in so many different anthologies one wonders what ( except for the price of the volume) is the advantage of reading them here.
Nonetheless any collection of great poetry is a celebration. And there is much great poetry here . Go down the list of the major anthologies of English and American poetry, and you will find the poets listed here.

disappointing.......2004-01-03

The poetry in this book covers a period from the middle ages to modern times and is arranged in order of date.You will find well known names such as Tennyson, Keats, Wordsworth to name a few.
That said, I was surprised by how many of the verses I had never heard of or read before although this is called '100 Best Loved Poems'.Some of the poems featured here are quite obscure. There are some well known ones such as 'Charge of the light brigade' and 'Daffodils' but if you are looking for a book that will help you brush up on all of those half remembered snippets of poetry from your schooldays, then this may not be the choice for you. Having said that, this is a very low price for a collection of poems and if you do want something a little different, then at this price it may be worth adding to your bookshelf.

Break, Blow, Burn: Camille Paglia Reads Forty-three of the World's Best Poems

Average customer rating:

Her fresh writing, + 43 (mostly) great poems = success
Buy, Read, Enjoy!
Excellant Teaching
Great for Book Clubs
A nice review for beginners

Break, Blow, Burn: Camille Paglia Reads Forty-three of the World's Best Poems
Camille Paglia
Manufacturer: Vintage
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Poetry | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

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ASIN: 0375725393
Release Date: 2006-01-24

Book Description

America’s most provocative intellectual brings her blazing powers of analysis and appreciation to bear on the great poems of the Western tradition, and on some unexpected discoveries of her own. Combining close reading with a panoramic breadth of learning, Camille Paglia refreshes our understanding of poems we thought we knew, from Shakespeare’s “Sonnet 73” to Shelley’s “Ozymandias,” from Donne’s “The Flea” to Lowell’s “Man and Wife,” and from Dickinson’s “Because I Could Not Stop for Death” to Plath’s “Daddy.”

Paglia also introduces us to less-familiar works by Paul Blackburn, Wanda Coleman, Chuck Wachtel, Rochelle Kraut–and even Joni Mitchell. Daring, riveting, and beautifully written, Break, Blow, Burn will excite even seasoned poetry lovers, and create a generation of new ones.

Customer Reviews:

Her fresh writing, + 43 (mostly) great poems = success.......2007-06-10

This book is a real refreshment -- a shower of [mostly; I could have done without "Woodstock"] great poems, with just enough stirring, insightful commentary to draw the reader deep into the pool of each poem's meanings and pleasures. The format is very successful, with each typographically well-preseented poem followed by three to five pages of thoughtful, extremely well written critique and commentary, including history, analysis, and politically fresh perspectives. Unlike other reviewers who didn't like the slection of poems, I really appreciated the mix of classic standards with modern poems I wasn't familiar with, and which seem to have been selected for their accessibility and power. (Only the final selection -- Joni Mitchell's "Woodstock" -- was out of its league.)

This was an ideal "car book," one I keep in the car and read in 15-minute episodes as I'm waiting for an appointment, or eating a meal on the road. It is a great way to bring poetry in, or back in, to your life, and to leaven a diet of more utilitarian or narrative reading.

Buy, Read, Enjoy!.......2006-11-28

Paglia has clearly retreated from the limelight and is doing what she does best: teaching. You can argue with the book's subtitle (her pick of the world's best poems all happen to have been written in English); you can argue with her choices (at least when she gets into the late 20th century); and you can argue with the specifics of her analyses (she identifies Ralph Pomeroy's use of the word "craver" as a misprint for "craker," a type of crow); but you can't argue with her passion and commitment to careful, line-by-line reading of poetry. All of the poems discussed are short lyric poems which are reprinted in the volume (so you don't have to hunt them down). Most poems warrant 3 to 6 pages of discussion. Paglia does not ramble or reflect idly. These short essays are dense but lively, and clearly the distillation of many years' worth of teaching notes. Every sentence is a gem. Paglia provides biographical information on the poets' lives, but is not quick to assume that when a poet writes in the first person s/he is speaking about her/himself. On the other hand, where poets freight their works with many personal references, as Frank O'Hara does in "A Mexican Guitar," she acknowledges this fact while giving the reader permission to find delight in them without ever expecting to unlock all their mysteries. Her reading of Sylvia Plath's "Daddy" is worth the price of the book.

I have despaired of ever seeing volume 2 of SEXUAL PERSONAE, where Paglia promised to go deeper into discussion of film and pop culture. But I was glad to have come across this little volume of thoughtful literary criticism. She definitely has renewed my interest in the Metaphysical poets, Whitman, Dickinson, Williams, and Roethke, among others.

Excellant Teaching.......2006-08-30

Ms. Paglia teaches poetry the only way I can really understand it; line by as well as looking at the whole. A great way to begin to learn how to read and enjoy poetry, as well as get an overview of great poems through history. I'm now ordering books by Harold Bloom to continue my study, per Paglia's esteem of him.

Great for Book Clubs.......2006-04-12

Reading this book one poem per day will cause a emotional and spiritual depth charge to detonate in your unconscious.
We had a great discussion in our book club. We waved the "read the whole book" rule and asked everyone to come with at least three poems that they had read deeply. We had a wonderful discussion on everything from the nature of poetry to Woodstock.
Taste and see.

A nice review for beginners.......2006-03-03

I felt this book was a nice starting place for literary analysis of some of the more important poems in the English language. Paglia covers the "heavy hitters" - Shakespeare, Donne, Dickenson, and throws in her own picks, Joni Mitchell, Ralph Pomeroy. While the latter half of the book is filled with the Beats, and more modern poetry is virtually ignored, the book itself isn't bad. Gone is Paglia's caustic wit, this reads more like a classroom primer of some of these poems.

The Best Poems of the English Language: From Chaucer Through Frost

Average customer rating:

Poetic
A nice capper to Bloom's career
a classic poetry volume
Too much Bloom
Not The Selection, But The Process

The Best Poems of the English Language: From Chaucer Through Frost
Harold Bloom
Manufacturer: HarperCollins
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0060540419
Release Date: 2004-03-16

Book Description

The great critic presents his personal selection, with commentary, of the finest poems in the English language.

This comprehensive anthology attempts to give the common reader possession of six centuries of great British and American poetry. The book features a large introductory essay by Harold Bloom called "The Art of Reading Poetry," which presents his critical reflections of more than half a century devoted to the reading, teaching, and writing about the literary achievement he loves most. In the case of all major poets in the language, this volume offers either the entire range of what is most valuable in their work, or vital selections that illuminate each figure's contribution. There are also headnotes by Harold Bloom to every poet in the volume as well as to the most important individual poems. Much more than any other anthology ever gathered, this book provides readers who desire the pleasures of a sublime art with very nearly everything they need in a single volume. It also is regarded by its editor as his final meditation upon all those who have formed his mind.

Customer Reviews:

Poetic.......2007-02-01

A book to buy and read for anyone interested at all in the highest arts of the written English language. Dr. Bloom, a person with a higher level of knowledge and pure intellect than almost all, has brought together many of the great poems of our civilization. While I did not understand all he said in his introductions, there is no doubt he is a treasure of our society.

I am not someone who normally reads poetry. This book gave me access to works by poets (many I had not even heard of) that I would never have read otherwise---which would have been my sad loss.

A nice capper to Bloom's career.......2005-08-05

This work is entirely self-indulgent as are most works of literature and criticism. As Bloom points out in his intorductory essay, this is the collection of poetry he wishes he had always owned. Therefore, if you share a similar taste in poetry as Bloom then this is a necessary anthology. If I were teaching a poetry course this year I would use this anthology.

a classic poetry volume.......2005-01-31

The Best Poems of the English Language is an anthology that consists of many major classic poetic works and covers approximately six centuries of significant British and American poetry. It is a worthy addition to any poetry lover's library.

Too much Bloom.......2004-07-15

The cover of this anthology, with Harold Bloom's name looming larger than that of the title, should prove a clue as to its content.

On a positive note, the selection of poems is exquisite but in choosing to represent some of the finest poets of the language with no more than a scattering of their works, that should come as no surprise; exclusion of most of the poems would be criminal, especially from a canonizer such as Bloom. Outside of the 17th century selections, there are few surprises.

Overall, however, Bloom is a bully of a critic: he provides long-winded commentary yet neglects annotation to the poetry, revealing his priorities to lie with his judgement of the poems rather than with the poems themselves. If you are in agreement with his evaluations (or revaluations), you have found a bombastic and articulate ally to you opinions. Howevever, should Bloom prove (can such things ever be proven?) off the mark on some of his majesterial assertions, then his voice sounds all the more ridiculous for its timbre and volume.

Particularly annoying in Bloom's commentaries (on which this review has focused since, in all honesty, they are the determining factor in whether to buy this otherwise predictable anthology): his perpetual egotism, most poignant when he compares himself to his blind students reading Milton; insistent self-parallels with Samuel Johnson (for Bloom, the greatest of all critics); disparagement of modern critical trends which, even when warranted, seems unnecessarily belligerent ; quasi-spiritual epiphanies, which shake Bloom (admitted into a gnostic sect?) with each great poet he hears echo in another.

It is a shame that Bloom does not provide more disciplined, attentively textual readings in his commentaries; perhaps grounding himself to the poetry, Bloom would feel less inclined to try to outdo it.

Not The Selection, But The Process.......2004-04-08

I was a bit surprised when I first skimmed through the book, mainly from the stopping point selection at Hart Crane, born in 1899. I was looking foward to Bloom consolidating some of the 20th century for me, but it wasn't to be. After I sulked a while and started reading, I have found it to be one of, if not, his most approachable and rewarding book (and I have about thirteen of his latter books). What I found especially rereadable and delightful is his essay--"The Art of Reading Poetry," which is in the beginning 30 pages, divided in 8 sections. Bloom takes a very practical approach towards READING poetry and gives some advice that reminds me of his assumed heir: Helen Vendler. For instance HB says we should ask ourselves 4 questions when reading a poem. The first, (roughly from memory) is what does the poem mean, and is that meaning clearly attained. Next, can we deem the poem as simply good, or is it intrinsically well-crafted. And finally does this poem transcend its time or is it a period piece? There are other nuggets that I strongly believe will make their way into anthologies across America in due time, probably once the obtuse personality of Bloom fades and we are left with just his passion and wisdom for literature.
There are also introductory essays before the authors that offer us bio information, but of special interest and relevance. Just this morning I read that Willaim Blake and his wife, after a struggling marriage in the beginning, lived the rest of their life in contentment, by all accounts.
As a potential buyer, don't be scared of another technical, verbose, theoretical book. And don't think BLoom is trying to make his favorite poems your favorite poems; but see that he is using these poems to illustrate how to interpret and engulf your own favorite poems. This book is Bloom at his most genial and wise, and at times his most personal.

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Best Loved Poems of the American People
Poems
My favorite book of poetry
Best Poem Book Ever
It Is Truly The Best Loved Poems Of The American People!

Best Loved Poems of the American People
Hazel Felleman
Manufacturer: Doubleday
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0385000197
Release Date: 1936-10-01

Book Description

More than 1,500,000 copies in print! Over 575 traditional favorites to be read and reread. Categorized by theme, and indexed by author and first line, this is a collection that will be treasured.

Customer Reviews:

Best Loved Poems of the American People.......2007-05-21

Having been a poetry lover since childhood and having enjoyed a copy of this book myself for many years, I was happy to buy a copy for a friend.

I like the variety of poems and the way they are arranged and listed in the table of contents. If I am looking for a poem that is inspiring or one on faith, or one that tell a story, it is easy to find. One poem that I don't find here is "The Cremation of Sam McGee".

When I was younger I memorized poems for church programs, Decoration Day, and school functions. Many of them are included and bring back fond memories.

Poems.......2007-03-25

I was very pleased with the time it took to get this book and it was in perfect condition.

My favorite book of poetry.......2006-08-02

My mother had a copy of the Best Loved Poems of the American People and I always wanted a copy. This is one book that you can pick up at any time and find something interesting and fitting. I really enjoy it. Happy reading.

Best Poem Book Ever.......2006-02-21

My dad read these poems to me 40 years ago. They are the best most inspiring and well organized collection I have ever seen. It was a privelage to buy one book for myself and one for my parents.

It Is Truly The Best Loved Poems Of The American People!.......2005-05-24

I absolutly loved this book. There are all the types of poems in different sections. I loved most the poems but some i think had no meaning to me. My favorite poem is called "Two Pictures"
It used alot of descrptive words and created a vivd picture in my mind what the two pictures would look like. This poem gives you ideas on how two wirte your own poem because of the inspiration. I think you should buy this book and read it for all your family ot enjoy. Remember, th is book has poems best loved of the amrican people.

Britton Sorensen

The Best Part of Me: Children Talk About Their Bodies in Pictures and Words

Average customer rating:

Inspiring Idea
Interaction at its Best
Photos that touch your heart
knees & elbows & necks, oh my!

The Best Part of Me: Children Talk About Their Bodies in Pictures and Words
M. Tingley
Manufacturer: Little, Brown Young Readers
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0316703060

Book Description

Wendy Ewald asked children a compelling question-What is the best part of you? The resulting book captures children's thoughts about their bodies in striking photographs and disarmingly honest words. Sometimes funny, sometimes moving, always provocative, The Best Part of Me is a distinguished, deeply personal book that is sure to be welcomed by teachers and parents looking for creative ways to discuss body image, self-esteem, and diversity and children.

Customer Reviews:

Inspiring Idea.......2006-11-06

I shared this book with my third grade class in the beginning of the year. Each double page spread has a child's writing (best self-edited) and a black and white photo. Since the writers were close to their ages, they could model their own writing after the writing in the book. Each child chose their "best part" to write about and then posed for a picture of their hair, feet, etc. I used a digital camera to take black and white photos. The lack of color really emphasized their work. These are now mounted on their lockers for all to see and I have never had as many comments on student writing. This book could inspire writers of many ages.

Interaction at its Best.......2006-09-17

Great book. What an easy way to get children involved with writing associated with literature. Not only does The Best Part of Me expose children to engaging prose, which they can relate to, it also gets them thinking about what they might say about their own bodies. This is an easy and instant writing project for any classroom, K-12, and the end project creates a terrific bulletin board. The book is worth every cent.

Photos that touch your heart.......2002-05-29

My wife, Marilyn, did a Best Part of Me project with one of the classrooms she consults with. The children who wrote and the shildren and adults who saw the photos and the writing about them were engaged.

Wendy Ewald is an amazing person who uses a camera as a way to learn.

knees & elbows & necks, oh my!.......2002-03-08

Immediate, poetic & bright this big book brings you up close & personal with children's feet, hands, eyes, backs, hair, elbows in award-winning Wendy Ewald's magical photos.

The poems penned by these 15 youngsters are funny & eloquent, touching & proud. As is usual with children, it's more about what they don't say as much as it is about what they do.

Bound to get kids thinking about what they like about their bodies, might even get them writing little ditties about it too! A must in a classroom or school library!

The poems & black & white photos in THE BEST PART OF ME are drawn from Literacy Through Photography, a program Wendy Ewald originated in the public schools of Durham, North Carolina.

The Best American Poetry 2001 (Best American Poetry)

Average customer rating:

Poet's Personal Stories and Pleasures
why nobody reads poetry.
What is poetry?
The usual best and worst of poetry
Beauty that is poetry...!

The Best American Poetry 2001 (Best American Poetry)
Robert Hass
Manufacturer: Scribner
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Anthologies | Poetry | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

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The Best American Poetry 2000 (Best American Poetry)
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ASIN: 0743203836

Book Description

The annual publication of The Best American Poetry is an eagerly awaited event among poetry fans across the country. This year's volume in the critically acclaimed series presents American poetry in all its dazzling variety at a moment of extraordinary richness and originality.

Guest editor Robert Hass, a former Poet Laureate and a central figure in the poetry world, brings his passionate intelligence to The Best American Poetry 2001. In his engaging introduction, Hass writes that after sifting through dozens of literary magazines, he "found that there were large numbers of poems that gave me pleasure, seemed to have inventive force, or intellectual passion or surprise." The works he selected are diverse in every way and have only their excellence in common. Ranging from the traditional to the innovative, the book features important new poems from Anne Carson, Robert Creeley, Michael Palmer, Robert Pinsky, and Adrienne Rich; rare posthumous works by Elizabeth Bishop and James Schuyler; and poems by marvelous newcomers like Amy England, Olena Kalytiak Davis, and Rachel Zucker.

With comments from the poets illuminating their work, and series editor David Lehman's always entertaining foreword assessing the current state of the art, The Best American Poetry 2001 is a book every reader of poetry will want to have.

Customer Reviews:

Poet's Personal Stories and Pleasures.......2006-12-29

"We're bent in the garden planting spring bulbs, pulling up
weeds, and I'm wondering how much longer we'll crouch here
on our knees in the damp soil sorting things out. Guardians
of shrubs and flowers, the first wild cyclamen sipping the sun.
We watch over each other as we watch over our garden,
woolly branches of cacti, fiery pokers of aloes in winter.
Especially during a long drought, after a snowfall, or following
the arcs of missiles on our screen. Flurries of extra caring.
Some mornings we hang on to each other as if we're afraid to let go."
~ pg. 126, Shirley Kaufman

The fascination I currently have with The Best American Poetry series seems born of my curiosity to see how each editor creates a world of poetry they feel possessed to love. The choices made by Robert Hass reflect so accurately his loves and dislikes. You can live in a short moment of his life through reflecting on what it is he enjoys about the selections in this book.

Each poet sees the world so uniquely, but many times they seem to write from a place of loneliness, the desire to speak to another soul of similar substance. This becomes very apparent in the personal stories of pleasure and pain, emotional and real, fresh and trying. At times lines from a poem feel distant and sad while others spring from the page, pouncing on you with the joy of a happy kitten. Poetry has its own rewards and good poetry is the reward for searching through a lot of moments, that while not mediocre to many, may be to you. Your personal taste figures in highly in what you will enjoy and to one person, a poem may mean nothing, and to another, it is the world.

For this reason, I try to view poems from many perspectives. I will say that the poems in this particular volume can be especially perplexing. The truth is, you may read this book one day and feel completely disconnected and come back and read it on another day and wonder what you were thinking.

The mood of this volume is especially intellectual and complex with many literary references, like discussions of the death of Virgina Woolf and the writings of Dostoevsky. The poems are mysteries to be solved and require your full attention and don't seem to immediately welcome you into their intimacy. But then you happen upon a poem like Linda Gregg's "The Singers Change, The Music Goes On" and you know you have happened upon a moment of truth that will endure.

"We live our myth in the recurrence,
pretending we will return another day.
Like the morning coming every morning.
The truth is we come back as a choir."

Allen Grossman's "Enough rain for Agnes Walquist" has some very intriguing thoughts:

" -a smooth stone
passed in a kiss from the mouth
of a Fate into my open mouth
amidst odors of metal
and slamming doors
at the dark end of a railway car
as the train was leaning
on a curve and slowing
to stop-is lost. Lost"

Alice Noteley's poem must be printed sideways because the lines are so long it can't possibly fit on the pages any other way:

"always near the border and never in the snows come again and the purple sinister sky
so I can die and read the books they leave me always alive the letters and the letters letters."

Robert Pinsky's "Jersey Rain has beautiful images of the moon where he talks about "The chilly liquefaction of day to night." James Richardson writes "Ten-second Essays" that are numbered and give you snippets of moments to enjoy and expand upon in your own mind. A few of the lines are quite funny, like: "Say nothing as if it were news" or witty like: "The road not taken is the part of you not taking the road."

Mary Ruefle's "Furtherness" is especially beautiful in the most poignant of ways as she writes about death. The poem I loved the most was "Apple" by Susan Stewart which made me long for the Apple tree in my grandmother's yard.

"You can roast late apples
in the ashes. You can run
them in slices on a stick.
you can turn the stem to
find the letter of your love."

Most poets will find Bernard Welt's "I stopped writing poetry" rather amusing. I loved his line: "It's a terrible thing to receive exactly the attention you want." The entire poem gives insight into why poets write in the first place and any poet could relate to: "still a breeze reaches me from time to time fragrant of verse."

If you read this book and stopped at page 58, you would miss an entire world! I was so happy I kept reading.

~The Rebecca Review

why nobody reads poetry........2006-09-05

want to know why nobody reads poetry anymore? read the first 58 pages of this book and you will know. 58 pages is all of my free time that i could justify wasting. page after page of dull words thrown up by pretentious people with next to nothing to say. truly horrible.

What is poetry?.......2005-01-03

There has been much debate over the past ten years of what constitutes poetry. This book involves a broad scope of what is now considered poetry and why very few people "like" poetry. To sum it up, "good grief!"

The usual best and worst of poetry.......2003-05-04

Nearly every edition in this series contains I like and poems I hate. It really does depend on the editor's tastes. Since Hass is big on ambiguity, language poetry, and fragmented narratives, many of the poems here follow that. My favorites include: Bly, Rich, Lydia Davis, James Galvin. I think overall this is one of the top few books in this series. I can already see that I'm not going to like the 2002 edited by Creeley

Beauty that is poetry...!.......2002-07-10

...And if there is a democracy in writing, indeed, it is poetry. The Best American Poetry 2001 is a compilation of great poems from various writers and covers wide range of subjects, from sad to happy and from abstract to everyday situation proems are covered in this great book. Some poems touch your heart, others make you laugh, and some leave an everlasting impact upon you... best part is that all of them co-exist in this great book. This book is the best companion that a young developing poet can have, this book is the best refenrence a mature poet could use... and this very book is something that a very common man can refer to. Poetry starts where prose ends, it can say one paragraph in a few words... it can summarize an article into a stanza. It can trigger a war of words and it has the power to hold great romance in form of sonnets. Poetry is something that all of us associate to... some refer to it in the hour of crisis, the others turn to it in the moment of celebration. This book is indeed deep... it could well be termed a perfect mosaic, an extraordinary collage, a magically colourful painting... one that has been completed by many great artists, and it is a book that could leave an impact of many young writers who could well be the future artists. The Best American Poetry 2001 is a must to read - Its somethig that we have to keep!

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